Liam Quaide (Cork East, Social Democrats)
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194. To ask the Minister for Health the staffing benchmarks she is aiming to implement in primary care services for young people, where waiting-lists across the disciplines of psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy and physiotherapy are in crisis; if she will suspend the pay and numbers strategy and undertake a comprehensive recruitment drive based on those benchmarks, as well as recruiting additional staff in the short-medium term to help address waiting-lists that now far exceed the capacity of a fully staffed service; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [64548/25]

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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The HSE’s annual Pay and Numbers Strategy (PNS) sets out the HSE's pay budget, recruitment targets and staffing ceilings for the year. In doing so, the PNS reflects the service commitments outlined in the HSE’s annual National Service Plan (NSP).

Whilst still under consideration by the Minister for Health, the 2026 NSP includes a proposed new approach to the management of pay budgets and staff recruitment. Under these proposals, all decisions on the utilisation and prioritisation of resources will be devolved to the HSE’s Regional Executive Officers and National Directors of National Services and Schemes. These decisions will be made in line with national strategies and the requirement to stay within both budget and WTE limits.

This approach represents a move from concentrating on inputs, such as WTE, to concentrating on outputs that impact on the users of healthcare services.

The approach is discernible in the Primary Care commitments featured in the NSP. Instead of setting staffing thresholds the Primary Care commitments in the NSP include:

• Single point of access to disability, mental health and primary care services will be provided for children to improve timely access to the right care
• Greater access with more services available in the evenings and on weekends
• Implementation of the action plan to reduce Primary Care Therapy Waiting Lists